My brother, an accomplished marathoner and IronMan triathlete, is a fan of the Yankz! shoelace products. Having never tried them myself, but very curious about them, I was pleased to be given the opportunity to try them out. Please note that I did not use this product during a race. Instead, I used it for training purposes only. Yankz shoes lacesJessica Mumme After pulling the Yankz! laces out of the packing, I stared at them. For quite awhile, in fact. I just could not figure out how to get them hooked up to my shoes. After removing my current laces, I thought there must be a simple way to put the Yankz! into my shoes. I searched the web. Hip-hip-hooray! I found a very useful video on how to install the Yankz!. Yay, success! Now let's put these laces to use. Normally, laces are far too big on my shoes - I have the big loop that nearly touches the ground on both sides. This can be cause for a huge running disaster, especially if the loops get stuck on a twig or piece of debris as you are blazing down the road or a trail. The Yankz! product completely eliminates this worry, as there are no loops left on your shoes. Another ingenious point of this product is that you do not have to worry about your laces coming untied, or even becoming loose (causing you to stop and re-tie them mid race). This is incredibly pleasing on the mind - one less thing to worry about! After quickly realizing the benefits of the Yankz! lacing system, I went to their website in search of additional information. Can I choose from a wide assortment of colors? Is there anything to make them unique, or customizable, just to me? You want color choices? No problem - I was able to locate over 25 different color choices, to personally suit each and every shoe color, running outfit, or overall style for all of us runners. Yankz! also offers a service where they can attempt to match any color you want exactly. Additionally, if you have a shoe size of 13 or larger, they do offer a size that will fit your running shoes, too! The regular size Yankz! will fit shoes sizes up to size 12. I'm quite pleased with this product. Who would think that runners, whether we know it or not, tend to worry about our shoe laces coming untied, or catching on something on the trail. I didn't realize how much I think about this during my training runs and races. I'm happy to continue to use Yankz!, and recommend them to fellow runners, knowing that it will eliminate one more potential worry in our runs. Running shouldn't be about worrying, should it? -Jessica, Run Oregon Blogger